EREPA aims to manage protected areas in four provinces

By Lachlan Eddie

The Ensuring Resilient Ecosystems and Representative Protected Areas (EREPA) Project in the Solomon Islands aims to promote biodiversity protection, build capacity for the creation and management of protected areas, and strengthen the policy framework for creating, managing and maintaining Protected Areas (PAs).

This project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF 6) and executed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has been ongoing in Guadalcanal, Rennell and Bellona, Malaita and Temotu provinces.

Cathy Unga, National Project Coordinator, highlighted this project during the celebration of Biodiversity Day talk-back show at the SIBC on Thursday.

She said the project aims to achieve healthy and restored landscapes in these provinces.

“In this project, people will benefit in terms of income-generating sources where the project focuses mainly on agriculture and forestry.

“Agriculture is to improve livelihoods and forestry is to look at areas that have been degraded,” Unga said.

The project is mainly established PAs.

One of the challenges in implementing this project is working with communities in critical ecosystems. 

“For example, Kongulai is a protected area and one of the critical ecosystems in the country. 

“All the partners working with the project face challenges with people because of social influences—the area is close to urban areas and the land is not owned by the government, it is customary land,” she explained.

However, one successful outcome of the project’s intervention is the establishment of 34 proposed PAs within the four provinces, which will contribute towards the terrestrial PA coverage that the country wants to achieve at 10 percent.

The project supports the 34 proposed PA groups within the four provinces.

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